Fragments
by Leadhead
Summary: There are some things that are forgotten and healed with time, cleansed with the passing of each year as they are buried in the memories of the people….the past acts of a homicidal maniac is not among them.


((F R A G M E N T S ))  
  
(most) characters © to Johnen C. Vasquez, and "Slave Labor Graphics" ™ text & relative concept © to FoxriderX  
  
It was not necessarily a pleasant place to be, with the old demons whispering in and out of the boarded up windows, but it was a place he had once took residence in, and it mattered enough for him to return to it.  
  
The house was in miserable shape, shambles even, after being unkempt and dormant for such a long number of years. Though in the history of the world, it was a mere blink of an eye, a period of time not even worth looking back on.  
  
Well, to most anyway.  
  
A bottomless chill swept through, blowing away one of the thick layers of settled particles covering the ground. About the floor were scattered remnants of glass, splinters of wood and fused metal. There was a gaping hole in the center of the floor, opening up through the old wood like the maw of hell itself. In the shafts of golden light sneaking through the cracks in the walls or the planks of wood boarding up the windows, the dust flew up and sparkled in the rays of the dying sun, like some forgotten, winged creatures of a mythical land. Cracks snaked up the concrete walls, and burnt red splatters of dried blood still stained the walls; a subtle reminder of great wrongs once committed. This building should've been condemned long ago, but it still stood fast. Inky shadows played where the light couldn't touch, and dust danced where it could. A shattered television set, a warped couch, some torn posters smothering the walls in a smaller room off to the side, a broken writing desk, and a knife plunged into the floor, still covered in dried blood---- if they could all speak, would they say what horrors had they witnessed? Had they seen injustice--the pain, the suffering-- or had they seen something with a deeper meaning? Oh, so many questions that will probably never be answered.  
  
But in the corner, hidden by the ink-black cloak of shadows, was the small, reddish glow of the tip of a lit cigarette pinched between a pair of fingers. The owner of the cigarette sat hunched in the corner, a shaft of golden sun lighting his thin face for a moment. His face held a dour scowl, his hair wild mess of fading black and his skin a yellow-tan. He was a spindly man with long legs and long fingers, one set drumming on the floor. The man was clad in dark clothes (not gothic or punk, mind you), with knee- high steel-toe boots and a tattered, unbuttoned black trench coat that sagged below his kneecaps, pouring out onto the floor. The iron toes of the boots were fashioned to look somewhat like hooves, or perhaps the talons of a great bird of prey.  
  
He puffed on his cigarette, a plume of smoke curling up from it like the forked tail of a dragon. In past times, when he was a teenager and in his twenties, he could stay awake 24/7 on end and last without so much as a moment of sleep. And he had lived like that for a very long period of time. For his belief was that sleep was a waste of time, and that he didn't was to spend hours unconscious when he could be out doing something. It could've been something as simple as watching TV, as long as it was something besides sleeping. But in later years, he had begun to find it hard to stay awake in the wee hours of the morning and had become more prone to tiredness. Perhaps it was all those sleepless nights catching up with him. So (much to his disgust) he had began smoking maybe three or four years ago, just to escape the turmoil of slumber. After all, what would happen if one fine night he went to sleep, and didn't wake up the next morning? He tried his best to mask the lingering stench of the cigarettes, and began smoking less often. But here he was in the fading light of day, in the dark corner of an alien place once called his home, smoking a cigarette yet again.  
  
But now was no time to think of such horrid habits. He looked to the almost ancient (at least to him) rust colored blood splattered across the walls, looking like a bad paint job, and sighed. With that and a grunt of effort he heaved himself upright and began heading towards the exit. As he strode across the creaking wooden floor, there was the 'chu-clunk, chu- clunk' of his iron-toed boots hitting the floorboards. Heel-toe, heel-toe, heel-toe...that was the motion in which he took every step. His black coat swished, and he walked out the door and into the twilight, with the pearly blue-gray moon already rising into the sky.  
  
FoxriderX's Note: Well, there it is. The first chapter. Wheeeehoo. Now, this story could probably be considered a propaganda that I can write other things besides gag fanfiction just as good as the next author. But anyway, fragments will probably consist of several stories instead of a single, tightly woven epic so just keep that in mind. They will probably end up conjoining at one point, but I can't be sure. Putting that aside, think of this first chapter as a prelude....'cause we're just getting started. 


End file.
